Asylum, Sanctuary And Lady Liberty

June 27, 1986|By Arthur C. Helton, a lawyer and director of the Political Asylum Project of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

Next Tuesday, eight people are scheduled to be sentenced in Tucson for criminal convictions based on their efforts to provide refuge for Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States. They will face possible prison terms just as our nation prepares to celebrate the rededication of the Statue of Liberty--that ``Mother of Exiles`` in Emma Lazarus` poem. The irony is poignant.

The people involved in this ``sanctuary movement``--a grass-roots effort, organized largely by church groups in the Southwest--argue that political considerations here are determining whether those seeking asylum are able to obtain refuge from political violence and persecution at home. Their argument, which the jury in Tucson was precluded from hearing, has undeniable force.

The United States traditionally has proclaimed a generous and compassionate approach to refugee problems. However, the rhetoric has not always been matched by accomplishments, and people fleeing communist-dominated regimes have been favored over those fleeing other repressive or authoritarian regimes.

The Refugee Act of 1980 grants status to anyone seeking to enter the United States because of a ``well-founded fear of persecution`` on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or social standing. In theory, at least, the standard is nondiscriminatory.

In practice, it has been badly distorted. Our overseas admissions program, in particular, falls far short of meeting the needs of those who apply for asylum. The United States has agreed to admit up to 70,000 refugees in 1986--above and beyond the normal immigration ceiling of 270,000. The problem lies in the government`s determination about where the 70,000 should come from.

More than a million people have fled from El Salvador and Guatemala. Similar displacements have occurred in Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Yet this year we will accept no more than 3,000 refugees from Latin America, 6,000 from the Middle East and 3,000 from Africa--with the remaining 59,000 coming from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Indochina. These numbers reflect our foreign policy preferences.

Those are the official ``ceilings.`` Actual admissions show an even greater imbalance. In 1985, no Salvadorans or Guatemalans were admitted as refugees.

Asylum-seekers who manage to enter the country confront still further ideological discrimination. So far in 1986 only two of 110 Guatemalan applicants (2 percent) have been granted asylum, and only 42 of 502 Salvadorans (8 percent). This contrasts sharply with the approval rates for Nicaraguans (55 percent), Poles (54 percent) and Russians (42 percent).

The reason for the inequity has nothing to do with the merits of the cases. Consider El Salvador. As a matter of foreign policy, the executive branch (which includes immigration authorities) has every incentive to characterize the political climate in that country as improving--an image that would be jeopardized if asylum were granted to large numbers of Salvadorans. A report prepared in 1982 for circulation within the Immigration and Naturalization Service concedes that only Salvadorans with a ``classic textbook case`` have any hope of being admitted as political refugees. Often even that isn`t enough.

Not all Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing war are necessarily entitled to asylum under the standards of the Refugee Act. They are, however, entitled to fair and unbiased consideration of their cases. What they face instead is a stern and unlawful prejudgment against their claims, and in practice the overwhelming majority of them are characterized as ``economic migrants,``

regardless of their particular circumstances.

There is a humane alternative short of a revision of the asylum law. A powerful argument can be made that Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing the arbitrary risks of war, even if not eligible for asylum, should be granted

``safe haven`` until hostilities subside. Such protection, which could be made available through either legislation or executive action, has been offered in the past to Poles, Afghans and Nicaraguans. It would reflect in concrete terms the tradition we celebrate by the rededication of the Statue of Liberty.

The sanctuary movement is a testament to the unfulfilled promise of the Refugee Act of 1980, but the ultimate solution cannot be to rely upon private humanitarian initiatives such as sanctuary. Rather, the law must be applied to all in the nondiscriminatory and humane spirit in which it was written. Anything less would fail to fulfill the spirit symbolized by the Mother of Exiles.